


La folie des Trois

by one_flying_ace



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 10:42:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1776214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/one_flying_ace/pseuds/one_flying_ace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Athos meets Porthos one wet, miserable October day. As far as first meetings go, it isn't an auspicious one.</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Blood, brandy, and the makings of a legend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	La folie des Trois

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lynndyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/gifts).



> I hope this is something like what you asked for; I borrowed a little from each of your suggestions, and this is what became of them. I loved writing it, and I hope you like it!

Athos meets Porthos one wet, miserable October day. As far as first meetings go, it isn't an auspicious one.

"Generally speaking, it's considered bad manners to concuss a fellow musketeer," Athos says. A lump the size of a pigeon's egg has throbbed itself into existence at the back of his head, and his hat is covered in mud.

"Shouldn't have got in the way then," the other man says, and hefts his musket. This time he aims it, instead of bringing the butt down onto someone's head, and the acrid smoke makes Athos' head pound sharply.

Athos dislikes him. Intensely.

\------

It was always going to be a messy fight; smugglers don't like the law, that's practically the whole basis for their existence, and even a child could have told the King that more than ten musketeers would be needed. Hell, even a dog could have known that.

Athos, whose drinking is such that he doesn't much care where the next bottle comes from, is ambivalent on the subject of smugglers. He is not, however, a stupid man. When there's ten against thirty, and those thirty know that to be captured is to be hanged anyway, they're not going to back down. Accordingly, he is mostly sober and braced for an ugly fight.

All that comes to naught against a broad man wielding his musket as a club, and a yell that makes Athos turn at the wrong moment. The blow strikes him rather than the smuggler attacking from the side, but said smuggler runs into Athos' sword a moment later, so all is not lost.

Athos swears, and meets Porthos for the first time. It isn't the moment for conversation, though; there's men to be killed, and the King's alcohol to be rescued from a sure and certain profit at the hands of French - or worse, English - folk seeking some extra coins.

He can't be sure, but in the melee of the fight he thinks Porthos throws a man over his shoulder into two more, who don't get up again. Suddenly, the peculiar use of the man's musket makes more sense.

"Were you not taught to use that properly," he asks later, gesturing at the musket and trying to ignore how much he's craving a drink.

"Were you not taught to enjoy a good fight?" The stranger knocks back a mouthful of the smuggler's finest brandy, and leans over. "Porthos," he says, holding out a hand.

"Athos," he returns, and shakes it. In front of them are wounded and dead men, guarded by the reinforcements - Richelieu's, so naturally they were late - and it's still raining. "Do you always fight like that?"

Porthos shrugs, his grin broad and blinding. Athos' opinion of him goes up a notch, because that's answer enough.

\------

He doesn't know, at that point, how good Porthos is. He doesn't know the man will get drunk and shoot fruit off another's head without a hesitation, or throw a dagger perfectly into the heart of a target. He doesn't even know, really, that this is man whose life he will hold as dear as his own - more, maybe, given how often Athos seeks to drown his life in the bottom of a bottle.

What he does know is that grudging respect gives way, rapidly, to an unsettling reliance on knowing that if he drinks himself into blackness, Porthos will be there to throw a bucket of water in his face the next morning. Which he does, and Porthos does, with fair frequency.

It isn't that Porthos' friendship gives him a reason to live, because he's always had that; he wrapped his soul so tightly around the honour in being a musketeer that it would be impossible to truly give up now, although Porthos would sometimes disagree. Loudly. And angrily.

But Porthos drags him out of his chambers and sets him on a bench in a tavern, to watch Porthos' prowess with a musket or a throwing dagger. There is ale, or wine, or even brandy - smuggled, perhaps, but he has no knowledge of that and intends to keep it that way - but now he drinks in company, and knows he won't spend a night in the gutter if it takes more than a bottle to quieten his demons.

It's worth it, despite Porthos' instance that he weighs more than most horses.

\------

Several months later, an explosion knocks them and several other musketeers off their feet, even behind the shelter of a wall, and sends them arse over heels. When the ringing in his ears has stopped, Athos sits up and retrieves his hat with what little dignity he has left, brushing brick dust off the brim. Underneath him, Porthos grunts.

"Comfortable?"

"As if I were in the bed of the Queen herself," says someone else.

"We don't have a queen yet," Porthos says, and spits more dust. Athos hands him a water - well, mostly brandy - pouch, still mostly full, and unbroken.

"Ah, but if we did…well, you get the picture," the unknown musketeer says with a jaunty flourish. He pulls himself up to a kneeling position using what is left of the wall, and peers over it. "Either of you got any shots left?"

Athos joins him, after checking that Porthos' groaning was due to Athos' knee in his stomach and not some more serious wound. There's men staggering round in the clouds of dust created by the explosion, all of them concerned only with making sure all their limbs are still attached. "Time to earn that badge," Athos says, and the man quirks an eyebrow in response.

"I don't believe I've had the pleasure," he says, pulling his musket out from underneath a tumble of masonry. He glances up at the clearing dust cloud, aims, and fires. A man drops.

"I am Athos, and the man having a nap is Porthos."

"A pleasure," the stranger says, and holds out his hand. Instead of shaking it, Athos hands him another musket. "Oh, I see. You two are going to laze about and let me do all the work."

Porthos stretches, and kicks away some more rubble to retrieve his hat. "Can you not handle a few half-deaf, half-blind, stumbling fools?"

"Certainly. It's the enemy I'm concerned about."

Porthos hauls himself up with a laugh and takes aim with his own musket, and before long they're fighting together as if they were born to it. Every musketeer must defend himself and his fellow men during a fight, but already Athos sees Porthos himself making room for the stranger. They fight in a trio, falling naturally into patterns and defences as if they've been trained to it. Athos stops the stranger taking a dagger to the back, and in return the unknown musketeer steps in to engage a man about to shoot Porthos point blank.

During a lull in the fighting Athos finds himself face-to-face with the unknown musketeer, both of them distinctly dirtier and liberally splashed with blood. He salutes the man with his sword, and receives one in return, too winded to say much.

"Aramis," the stranger says, and from then on, well. He's a stranger no more.

\------

After that there's no looking back, except to make sure they're outrunning the enemy. They share wine, and a campfire, and often a room. Sometimes a bed, too; Porthos' own nightmares settle with the presence of someone else nearby, and so, Athos has discovered, do his own. It helps that Porthos is as far from the spectre of his nightmares as is humanly possible, and the two beds become one large one, covered in blankets to make a comfortable…the only word is 'nest', though Porthos will deny it, with the half-shrug and sideways glance that stops Athos pushing.

Aramis pushes, every time he sees an opening, but Porthos does no more than growl at him, and Athos never makes true on his threat of dropping Aramis' name into the ear of any number of husbands. He also takes Athos' drinking in his stride, much as Porthos did, and joins with him to make sure Athos ends up in his own bed of an evening, and not the gutter. Aramis' womanising ways raise no eyebrows, save for when he needs help retrieving his uniform from an unkind lady.

Before Athos quite knows how, they are inseparable, and not even his bitterest complaints about missing the quiet evenings spent in a drunken stupor will make them leave. They laugh, mostly. His comments about the state of Aramis' soul, withering though they are, only serve to make the man grin wider, sling an arm around Aramis' shoulders, and promise to be good. Which he never is, and so it goes around.

In a quiet moment, waiting for Aramis, Athos asks Porthos what he thinks of the man. They were two together before him, through some trickery of fate, and Athos has never asked why Porthos decided he was worthy of friendship - his demons are so clear they may as well ride his shoulders - but this is different.

"He's a good man," Porthos says solemnly. Athos raises his brows, but somewhere between childhood and becoming a musketeer Porthos learned to keep a solemn expression worthy of a priest.

"He's a shitty card player," Athos says. "He can't keep out of the beds of married women-"

"Better him than an empty bed."

"-their husbands would disagree."

"He fights well," Porthos adds, truly serious, and Athos listens. "He's a bloody good swordsman, he's not missed a shot yet, and I trust him to have my back as much as I trust you."

Athos considers. Then; "we're stuck with him, aren't we."

Porthos laughs. "As stuck as I am with you, sour moods and all."

\------

Treville takes longer to figure out what to do with them. Two of them preferring to fight next to each other is one thing, apparently, but three of them poses some difficulties. When he does fall to what the rest of Paris has already caught, he still tries to make a pretence of disliking the idea.

"I need someone to ride to Lille," he says, looking between them. "One of you. As the best of the musketeers, god help us."

"None or all," Aramis says easily, and it's best that he's the one who does. Porthos is belligerent this morning, brown drawn into a frown, not talking about whatever it is that's making his mood so dark and doing so very loudly. Athos has a nightmare still crawling up the backs of his eyes, pretty eyes and a honeyed voice and the creak of a rope. Aramis is smooth and foppish and sharp steel, and Treville is beaten. Not that he was serious; they all of them enjoy these meetings, even when they're all hungover. Or still drunk, in Athos' case.

He sighs, but there's a lot of teeth on show for a man who sounds so resigned. "None, then, I'll find another. You three-"

"Are going to Rheims," Aramis interjects, and out of the corner of his eye sees Porthos' frown turn a shade less gloomy.

Treville leans on his desk, looking hard at each of them. "I am not going to ask," he says, slowly, "how you know that Rheims is important. Cardinal Richelieu has only this morning intimated that there may be some information to be had there, and as yet that information is known only to His Grace, myself, and the paper it is written on."

They say nothing. Porthos because he knows nothing, Athos because he suspects but has always grumbled about courtly gossip, and Aramis because he's a smart man, underneath the foppishness. Athos tries not to smirk at the blandly innocent look on the man's face. And all three of them know that Treville is knows better than most just how good they work as a team; he’s not Captain for nothing. But still, now is not the moment to make costly remarks.

After a long moment, Treville nods. They are the best, and he acknowledges it. "Rheims, then."

"Sir," they say, bowing deeply. The Captain of the Musketeers grimaces and tells them to get out, but Athos sees his satisfied look.

"He’s a smart man, is Trevile. Knows how to make good use of his men," Aramis says jauntily, making a more elaborate bow to the group of court ladies giving him the eye from across the training ground.

"Of course he is," Porthos returns, "and we're the damn best."

Athos rolls his eyes, but doesn't disagree.

At the city wall is a market, and Aramis slips from his horse to make a purchase from a stall. Porthos looks to Athos, good humour restored and eyebrows raised, but they don't comment. When Aramis returns, he holds up a bunch of bright ribbons, bound to a small silver bell. "A present for a little songbird," Aramis says. "Who had no idea that her song would be so beautiful to my ears."

Porthos' laugh echoes off the market buildings, head thrown back, grinning wide.

Athos thinks, the little shit.

\------

In Rheims, there is a man. His execution is public, but not well attended. But he dies with a stomach full of fine wine and rich food, courtesy of the priest who visited late at night to hear his last confession. It is a long confession, made longer by the clever questions of the priest.

"Lille my arse," Porthos says, waiting in a dark corner opposite the prison gates. "What kind of game do you think the Cardinal is playing?"

"A long one," Athos returns, eyes fixed on a window high in the wall, lit by a flickering candle.

The man was a spy, a small, sneaking little man who sold his information for the most coin - often to more than one person at a time. And those people often have men and muskets of their own, far more of them than three musketeers can withhold, not to mention more at stake. None of them are willing to risk even a priest knowing some of the knowledge the man held, and so there is a trap.

Athos notices them easily, but there's no way to warn Aramis, still inside hearing confession. Thankfully not even prison guards will search a man of the cloth, and his musket kills a man before it is even fully untangled from his dark robes. He pulls them off and throws them at another, running him through when blinded. There's a pause before the others attack, and Aramis turns to Porthos as they ready themselves.

"Do you think they want me to-"

"Do not," Athos interrupts, "continue with that."

"But I make an excellent priest," Aramis says, laughing, and Athos rolls his eyes so hard he almost misses seeing the enemy attack.

They're outnumbered, although they've had worse odds. "Remember that time outside the tavern," Porthos shouts, and Athos joins Aramis to shout back "which time!" in old tradition. They're gradually pushed back, though, until behind them is an alley with high walls, and in front of them are seven men, ready to kill them in the name of a man desperate to keep his secrets.

"And these are the notorious three musketeers," one man sneers, a man with poor sword skills but two deadly pistols buckled at his waist. He stands with his six compatriots, boxing them into the alley with the swaggers of men unused to being on the winning side. Reinforcements are minutes away, by the distant sounds of running feet. "Any last words, before we wipe you from this earth?"

Athos ducks a mere second before a barrel whistles past his ear, crashing into the men and sending them scattering. "Looks like we don't need any," he observes, and next to him Aramis smirks, Porthos’ mighty heave taking him past and into the scattered men as they charge with ready swords. The speaker falls in the melee that follows, his sneer wiped away.

"Are we notorious?" Athos calls from where he is engaging two men, and Athos rolls his eyes, because they all know the answer damn well. "I hadn't noticed."

"Not nearly notorious enough," Aramis laughs, and runs a man through. "Why not add to the legend?"

"Legends happen after you're dead," Porthos shouts back, his grin flashing, laying about with the butt of his musket again. Athos keeps a wide berth.

"Which is why we should make the most of it whilst we live, gentlemen."

"He has a point," Athos says, breathing heavily, smiling despite himself. There are yet more men coming, loudly, and there's hardly a moment to catch their breath, let alone talk. "But while we stand here debating, those men draw nearer, and I don't think they want to talk to us."

"Treason against the King was behind the golden coin which bought the dead spy's information," Aramis says, "and as such we have a duty higher than our enjoyment of a good fight. It'll be a pity to miss it," he continues, with a flourish of his hat. He puts it firmly back on his head and risks a glance behind them, at the sounds of pursuit. "All the same-"

"Don't tempt fate," Athos warns, in sharp awareness that that is what they do, that is who they are. He needs this constant thrill of danger to keep the nightmares at bay in the noon sun, and he needs their quick conversation to block out a rich, laughing whisper teasing at his ears.

"What else are we placed on this earth to do?" Porthos laughs, and Aramis too, breaking into a run and hauling Athos with them to safety.

They make a good point.

\------

"Did you notice," Porthos says much later, when they are safely on the road and nearing Paris, "that many of those men wore a noble badge?"

"The Vicomte du Montvielle," Aramis confirms. At Porthos' lifted eyebrows he shrugs. "He has a sweet wife, who has a neglectful husband."

"Neglectful because he is planning to overthrow the King, perhaps?"

"It does take planning," Porthos observes dryly. "All that treason, it takes time."

\------

The Vicomte, perhaps unsurprisingly, doesn't take well to a force of musketeers arriving to arrest him for treason against the King of France.

That is to be expected.

What isn't, however, are the catapults.

\------

"By the grace of God," someone swears, and Athos laughs, or tries to. He's laying sprawled across Porthos' legs, Aramis bent over his torso, and he knows that he's alive not because of any higher being, but because of these two men. What happened will be a fog of nothing until they tell him, save for the few snatches he remembers; Porthos with a burning barrel, Aramis killing men with his usual style and deadly precision.

Then a large rock hurtling towards him, and after that, nothing. He thinks, craning his neck up to look at his torso, that the rock shattered and tried to take him with it into a messy end. But it's a vague thought, quickly replaced by another.

"The Vicomte-" he starts, and Porthos grunts, a warm hand pressing against his uninjured shoulder. The thought slips away.

"Dead," Aramis says, eyes concerned though his voice is light. "Or at least the parts of him that we can find are."

"Time to regale him with the success of your explosion later," Porthos says, as Athos watches gentle hands pull away the tattered shreds of Athos' shirt away from his wound. "Time to patch him up now."

"If he's asking after the Vicomte, he's fine," Aramis point out. Athos would agree with him, if he could tell which Aramis to speak to.

"You asked about your hat last time, and you were unconscious for three days after that."

"It was a good hat."

"Aramis." The word is almost a growl, a rumble against Athos' back, and thinks vaguely that his wound must be serious if it makes even Porthos worried. Or what passes as worried, for him. A hand tilts a flask into his mouth, and this time the brandy has the desired effect; after third swallow the pain in his side has faded to a dull burn, and after a fourth someone caches the bottle as it slips from his lax fingers.

\------

Athos wakes slowly, head pounding with the slightest movement. Awareness seeps in. He is in his own bed, after a gruelling two day ride with a painful wound and two musketeers who had turned into nagging wives at the slightest sign he might pull his stitches.

Porthos is sprawled out on his left, flat on his front, one arm draped over Athos's chest, in sleep uncaring of the neatly stitched wounds. For a moment Athos stares at the shift of muscles underneath Porthos’ skin, dappled by the moonlight coming through the imperfectly closed curtain. Something woke him, but he doesn't know what, and the blade under his pillow is out of easy reach.

"s'Aramis," Porthos says, voice muffled. "Move'ver."

Aramis steps into the room then, boots in one hand, hat in the other, looking the picture of debauched pleasure. "So solicitous," he says, voice low in the darkness. Porthos' arm tightens, and he pulls Athos closer with one smooth heave. His stitches tighten and a flare of pain makes him breathe in sharply. Aramis yanks his shirt off and glares, face lit by a streak of pale moonlight.

"I swear by the Virgin, Porthos, if you've split his stitches-"

"He's fine," Porthos says, muffled and drowsy, and Athos feels a warm hand checking the wound on his side. Aramis; fingers too swift and the touch too delicate for Porthos, who has sewn himself up in the past, but has no patience for the fine stitches Aramis takes pride in.

"They'll do," Aramis says, and settles down. He smells of perfume and woodsmoke, the sweet kind, the kind that burns in the bedrooms of rich, married women. It overpowers the scents of brandy and blood that Athos still imagines he can smell.

The bed - three beds, now, because Aramis is an unashamed opportunist and Porthos likes to stretch out sometimes - is big, but none of them are small men. Some nights that sends him back to the hard, narrow bed he had before he met the two of them, to deal with his demons alone. Other nights, they're the only thing that will stop the nightmares, these two men he trusts beyond all else.

Tonight, he hasn't got a choice, but that's fine.

In the morning, if he needs it, Porthos will throw a bucket of water in his face, and Aramis will check his stitches, clucking over them like a lady's maid. They'll bicker over breakfast, and cut him off at one tankard of beer, and then they'll go get more orders from Treville and kill people in the name of the King.

Not a bad life.

 

 


End file.
